Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Summer NYC 2 Day

So after getting to bed at 4am in the morning, we woke up at 8am ready to hit the pavement and take Sia out for her first full day in New York. After getting dressed and taking our outfit shots we headed off to Ess-a-bagel to get some bagels for breakfast. This place was around the corner from our Pod hotel and it was a late discovery last year. We lined up and kept up with the ordering pace this year. Damn! People know what they want and it's so busy in there....you need to have it all ready to roll off your tongue when it's your turn to order. They don't play....luckily it wasn't as busy this year.

photo courtesy of @sikilou

Next we bought our unlimited subway tickets at 53rd and Lexington for the next 7 days. We may have fist pumped the air when we made it to our destination with little trouble at all (okay so we were so excited to find our line that we got on without checking which train it was that we got on BUT we got off at the next stop and corrected our route). Then we made our way down to Battery Park and jumped on the free Staten Island Ferry to see Lady Liberty. We met this nice guy (yeah his green eyes, big arms and cute accent were an added bonus) named Carlos who was just as intrigued with Australia as we are with New York. After we got off in Staten Island we chatted for like 40 minutes talking about Australia and the Bronx and places to eat Puerto Rican & Dominican Republic food. I was like "So are you gonna show us around the Bronx?" I have no shame.

After meeting my friends Deja and Gabby and Candice I've confirmed two things. It's like a gazillion times better to be shown around by a local because you get a real feel of the place. I know you're probably thinking "STRANGER DANGER ALERT" but if you get the sense that people are good then 99.9% of the time you are right. Don't underestimate your gut feeling. Just think about how amazing your brain is. It's stored all of your life's experiences and memories and we humans learn from experience and routine so if for some reason something in your head is sending out warning signals than you should follow your instinct. I just don't want y'all to think I foolishly bash about with anybody. We met and talked and teased and shared jokes so before I asked for a tour I was thinking 'yeah he seems legit and cool". ANYWAYS back to the story..... He said he would show us around and we swapped numbers, social networks and email addresses but we ran out of time to make our way out to the Bronx during our stay. I'll keep in touch with good old Carlos so it's definitely sorted for next time.

After that we walked over to the Native American National Museum and wandered through the museum. It was full of beautiful artefacts, delicate carvings, spears and traditional dress attire. Next we ran through the rain and caught our subway (successfully) back to the hotel. More on our first night out in New York on the next post. Stay tuned.